Online Activism

Inside Avaaz – can online activism really change the world?

With 30 million members, Avaaz is an organisation with ambitions to save us all through technology. Carole Cadwalladr meets its founder Ricken Patel to find out what it has achieved↲

Getting ahead↲: protesters dressed as David Cameron and Rupert Murdoch at the Leveson inquiry↲. Photograph: Rex

There are so many causes. This is forcibly brought home to me outside the Houses of Parliament one day, back in July 2013, where I am trying to locate a “Don’t let Burma Become the Next Rwanda” protest . I find it eventually – there is a tableau vivant of tombstones↲ and a pair of people dressed as Burma’s president Thein Sein and David Cameron with outsize↲ papier-mâché heads – but I’m distracted from stories of potential genocide by the activities of Stonewall and the London Gay Chorus who are also protesting, just yards away↲. It’s a crucial day for the gay marriage vote, and while the Burma protestors are brandishing placards↲ and chanting slogans it’s a tough gig↲: the London Gay Men’s Chorus launches into a multi-part acapella version of “I Need a Hero” and Peter Tatchell has appeared and started dancing.

But then, this is the reality of 21st century protest: it’s a beauty parade↲. A competition for the thing that we all seem to have less of: attention. The TV cameras do show up, though, and a young Rohingya woman from Burma’s Muslim minority gives moving interviews to journalists about the terrible human rights abuses her family have endured↲. And a dozen or so mostly fresh-faced young people show up to offer their support. The protest has been organised by Avaaz , an online activist organisation, and these are Avaazers. They may have just signed an online petition, or “liked” a cause on Facebook, or donated to a campaign – to save Europe’s bees from pesticides, or to defend Masai land rights in Tanzania, or to “stand by” Edward Snowden. And, depending on who you believe, they’re either inventing a new type of 21st-century protest or they’re a bunch↲ of idle↲slacktivists who are about as likely to start a revolution as they are to renounce their iPhones and give up↲ Facebook.

In just six years, Avaaz – which means “voice” in various languages – has become a global pressure group to be reckoned with↲. It’s a new kind of activism that isn’t issue-led, it’s issues-led. It’s human rights abuses in Burma, or it’s the Syrian civil war, or it’s threats against↲ the Great Barrier Reef or it’s homophobia in Costa Rica. It’s whatever its supporters, guided by the Avaaz team, choose to click on most this month. And if you hadn’t heard of Avaaz before, it’s probably only a matter of time.